Complete Works of James Joyce (304 page)

You were.

535

RICHARD

Yet that separated me from you. I was a third person I felt. Your names were always spoken together, Robert and Beatrice, as long as I can remember. It seemed to me, to everyone...

BEATRICE

We are first cousins. It is not strange that we were often together.

RICHARD

He told me of your secret engagement with him. He had no secrets from me; I suppose you know that.

BEATRICE

(Uneasily.)
What happened — between us — is so long ago. I was a child.

RICHARD

(Smiles maliciously.)
A child? Are you sure? It was in the garden of his mother’s house. No?
(He points towards the garden.)
Over there. You plighted your troth, as they say, with a kiss. And you gave him your garter. Is it allowed to mention that?

BEATRICE

(With some reserve.)
If you think it worthy of mention.

RICHARD

I think you have not forgotten it.
(Clasping his hands quietly.)
I do not understand it. I thought, too, that after I had gone... Did my going make you suffer?

BEATRICE

I always knew you would go some day. I did not suffer; only I was changed.

RICHARD

Towards him?

BEATRICE

Everything was changed. His life, his mind, even, seemed to change after that.

RICHARD

(Musing.)
Yes. I saw that you had changed when I received your first letter after a year; after your illness, too. You even said so in your letter.

BEATRICE

It brought me near to death. It made me see things differently.

RICHARD

And so a coldness began between you, little by little. Is that it?

BEATRICE

(Half closing her eyes.)
No. Not at once. I saw in him a pale reflection of you: then that too faded. Of what good is it to talk now?

536

RICHARD

(With a repressed energy.)
But what is this that seems to hang over you? It cannot be so tragic.

BEATRICE

(Calmly.)
O, not in the least tragic. I shall become gradually better, they tell me, as I grow older. As I did not die then they tell me I shall probably live. I am given life and health again — when I cannot use them.
(Calmly and bitterly.)
I am convalescent.

RICHARD

(Gently.)
Does nothing then in life give you peace? Surely it exists for you somewhere.

BEATRICE

If there were convents in our religion perhaps there. At least, I think so at times.

RICHARD

(Shakes his head.)
No, Miss Justice, not even there. You could not give yourself freely and wholly.

BEATRICE

(Looking at him.)
I would try.

RICHARD

You would try, yes. You were drawn to him as your mind was drawn towards mine. You held back from him. From me, too, in a different way. You cannot give yourself freely and wholly.

BEATRICE

(Joins her hands softly.)
It is a terribly hard thing to do, Mr Rowan — to give oneself freely and wholly — and be happy.

RICHARD

But do you feel that happiness is the best, the highest that we can know?

BEATRICE

(With fervour.)
I wish I could feel it.

RICHARD

(Leans back, his hands locked together behind his head.)
O, if you knew how I am suffering at this moment! For your case, too. But suffering most of all for my own.
(With bitter force.)
And how I pray that I may be granted again my dead mother’s hardness of heart! For some help, within me or without, I must find. And find it I will.

(Beatrice rises, looks at him intently, and walks away toward the garden door. She turns with indecision, looks again at him and, coming back, leans over the easychair.)

537

BEATRICE

(Quietly.)
Did she send for you before she died, Mr Rowan?

RICHARD

(Lost in thought.)
Who?

BEATRICE

Your mother.

RICHARD

(Recovering himself, looks keenly at her for a moment.)
So that, too, was said of me here by my friends — that she sent for me before she died and that I did not go?

BEATRICE

Yes.

RICHARD

(Coldly.)
She did not. She died alone, not having forgiven me, and fortified by the rites of holy church.

BEATRICE

Mr Rowan, why did you speak to me in such a way?

RICHARD

(Rises and walks nervously to and fro.)
And what I suffer at this moment you will say is my punishment.

BEATRICE

Did she write to you? I mean before...

RICHARD

(Halting.)
Yes. A letter of warning, bidding me break with the past, and remember her last words to me.

BEATRICE

(Softly.)
And does death not move you, Mr Rowan? It is an end. Everything else is so uncertain.

RICHARD

While she lived she turned aside from me and from mine. That is certain.

BEATRICE

From you and from...?

RICHARD

From Bertha and from me and from our child. And so I waited for the end as you say; and it came.

BEATRICE

(Covers her face with her hands.)
O, no. Surely no.

RICHARD

(Fiercely.)
How can my words hurt her poor body that rots in the grave? Do you think I do not pity her cold blighted love for me? I fought against her spirit while she lived to the bitter end.
(He presses his hand to his forehead.)
It fights against me still — in here.

538

BEATRICE

(As before.)
O, do not speak like that.

RICHARD

She drove me away. On account of her I lived years in exile and poverty too, or near it. I never accepted the doles she sent me through the bank. I waited, too, not for her death but for some understanding of me, her own son, her own flesh and blood; that never came.

BEATRICE

Not even after Archie...?

RICHARD

(Rudely.)
My son, you think? A child of sin and shame! Are you serious?
(She raises her face and looks at him.)
There were tongues here ready to tell her all, to embitter her withering mind still more against me and Bertha and our godless nameless child.
(Holding out his hands to her.)
Can you not hear her mocking me while I speak? You must know the voice, surely, the voice that called you
the black protestant,
the pervert’s daughter.
(With sudden selfcontrol.)
In any case a remarkable woman.

BEATRICE

(Weakly.)
At least you are free now.

RICHARD

(Nods.)
Yes, she could not alter the terms of my father’s will nor live for ever.

BEATRICE

(With joined hands.)
They are both gone now, Mr Rowan. They both loved you, believe me. Their last thoughts were of you.

RICHARD

(Approaching, touches her lightly on the shoulder, and points to the crayon drawing on the wall.)
Do you see him there, smiling and handsome? His last thoughts! I remember the night he died.
(He pauses for an instant and then goes on calmly.)
I was a boy of fourteen. He called me to his bedside. He knew I wanted to go to the theater to hear
Carmen.
He told my mother to give me a shilling. I kissed him and went. When I came home he was dead. Those were his last thoughts as far as I know.

539

BEATRICE

The hardness of heart you prayed for...
(She breaks off.)

RICHARD

(Unheeding.)
That is my last memory of him. Is there not something sweet and noble in it?

BEATRICE

Mr Rowan, something is on your mind to make you speak like this. Something has changed you since you came back three months ago.

RICHARD

(Gazing again at the drawing, calmly, almost gaily.)
He will help me, perhaps, my smiling handsome father.

(A knock is heard at the hall door on the left.)

RICHARD

(Suddenly.)
No, no. Not the smiler, Miss Justice. The old mother. It is her spirit I need. I am going.

BEATRICE

Someone knocked. They have come back.

RICHARD

No, Bertha has a key. It is he. At least, I am going, whoever it is.
(He goes out quickly on the left and comes back at once with his straw hat in his hand.)

BEATRICE

He? Who?

RICHARD

O, probably Robert. I am going out through the garden. I cannot see him now. Say I have gone to the post. Goodbye.

BEATRICE

(With growing alarm.)
It is Robert you do not wish to see?

RICHARD

(Quietly.)
For the moment, yes. This talk has upset me. Ask him to wait.

BEATRICE

You will come back?

RICHARD

Please God.

(He goes out quickly through the garden. Beatrice makes as if to follow him. and then stops after a few paces. Brigid enters by the folding doors on the right and goes out on the left. The hall door is heard opening. A few seconds after Brigid enters with Robert Hand. Robert Hand is a middlesized, rather stout man between thirty and forty. He is cleanshaven, with mobile features. His hair and eyes are dark and his complexion sallow. His gait and speech are rather slow. He wears a dark blue morning suit and carries in his hand a large bunch of red roses wrapped in tissue paper.)

540

ROBERT

(Coming toward. her with outstretched hand which she takes.)
My dearest coz. Brigid told me you were here. I had no notion. Did you send mother a telegram?

BEATRICE

(Gazing at the roses.)
No.

ROBERT

(Following her gaze.)
You are admiring my roses. I brought them to the mistress of the house.
(Critically.)
I am afraid they are not nice.